What collecting advice would you give a younger you?

[duffmanth]

Don't throw away manuals and boxes, and keep them in mint condition. Sell games privately instead of trading/selling them to pawn shops and/or used game stores. *Correction* don't sell or trade in games or consoles at all! Don't whip your controllers at the wall at a 100mph when you get pissed off at a game. Don't put your foot through your NES cuz it keeps freezing. Be picky about what games you spend full price on, and have more patience for games to drop in price.

*MOST IMPORTANTLY, DON'T LET YOUR FRIENDS BORROW YOUR GAMES, unless you have deep trust and confidence that they'll take care of your games!*

[MachineGex]

Keep boxes and instructions is good advice. I use to do that....I had a closet I would toss everything in...but when we moved, they all got dumped.

Also, trade newer releases for older rarer games. That way you can buy-back the newer releases when they go down in price. The rarer older stuff usually keeps it's value or goes up.

[jcalder8]

I would just tell myself which games to buy and which games to pass on. Not just in terms of value but also in terms of what games are fun and which ones suck. I would tell myself not to rent Silver Surfer that's for damn sure. Also picking up a few sealed games that would become rare would suit my personality of always wanting to make a buck so young me would be all over it! lol

[Steven]

Oh yeah, if we're not speaking about prices and doing things that would make us rich (i.e. buying 100 boxed Earthbounds), I would tell myself to document my game buying and playing experiences in a journal.

I regret not documenting my intense Saturn experience 1999-2005... fortunately learned from that regret and started documenting my SNES resurrection 2006-present. Still, part of me wishes I had done so for Saturn. Would be cool to look back on those days with a more in-depth accurate eye...

[YoshiM]

I would have told myself not to sale then re-buy and then sale then re-buy the same games over and over.

This. I'd shuffle this into "keep your Iron Man comic collection and DON'T sell it on eBay." I had well over 300 issues and after not being able to stand the dreck that's on stands now, I'm starting to buy those comics again. Funny thing is that it's practically in the same order I did 18 years ago.

Another would be to NOT store my game magazines in the shed then toss them after getting moisture damage. I had a LOT of early issues of EGM, VG&CE, GamePro, Game Player's and such and that's what I really collect these days. Could have saved some dough with some of those issue.

And finally to just keep the systems I had. Looking back I don't think I made out as much as I thought I did selling my Atari 5200, 7800 and such.

[Greg2600]

I gave away my NES to a friend after it had sat idle for a year or so in the late 80s. I'd love to have my original console and games now, so that'd be #1 even though none of it was rare or valuable. Also, we kept the games in the boxes until the boxes were falling apart and got thrown out, so I'd tell me to just put the boxes away somewhere. Of course, then that storage box probably would have gotten chucked at some point.

Yeah, I sold my original Genesis around 1996 to a friend, only original console I do not still have. I too gave away games and controllers to my younger cousin, and my aunt later gave them to her even younger nephews, whose mother threw them away!

[thom_m]

"Young Thom, my lad: your mommy is gonna tell you to give away your old systems to your cousins everytime you get a new one. DON'T. Also, make aunt Stella PROMISE you to give you that Intellivision when your older cousins don't want it anymore. You're welcome!"

[Steven]

"Young Thom, my lad: your mommy is gonna tell you to give away your old systems to your cousins everytime you get a new one. DON'T. Also, make aunt Stella PROMISE you to give you that Intellivision when your older cousins don't want it anymore. You're welcome!"

LMAO.

Sounds just like a scene from Back to the Future II

Ah, memories

[NE146]

Buy all those gawdamn Stadium Events you see behind the counter at Woolworths every single day you idiot.. the one that catches your eye because of the cover and makes you wonder "who the heck would get that?"

[moggles]

Don't spill orange juice on your Saturn.

[Compute]

So if we all told our younger selves to stock up on "rare" titles and keep them in box, then Earthbound,etc would be way more common than they are. We'd just be kicking ourselves for holding onto all of these worthless copies of Chronotrigger.

That said, I have a few:

"Don't rent WWF Smackdown for Playstation. You'll end up getting mad and throwing your Playstation at the wall, making it broken. And mom isn't about to buy you a new one."

"If you want to get into CCGs, don't get Sim City. Get that goofy one called "Magic." Way more people will play that one with you."

"Stop 'collecting' toys. You're in 4th grade and they won't be valuable for 15 more years."

"You're 16 and love video games. Man up and ask for a job sweeping the floor at the local arcade distributor. Ask again tomorrow, and then the next day."

"Just get off your ass and start building that MAME control panel." (Come to think of it, that's advice I can give myself today)

[Flashback2012]

"Take MUCH better care of your games, that includes not only the carts but the cases and manuals as well."

"Don't trade your original release Revenge of Shinobi to your cousin. You'll still be looking for it in 2011"

"Make collecting for the TG16/Duo a priority. When you see Magical Chase for sale in Babbages, do no hesitate to pick it up"

"Dial it down on your non-gaming hobbies such as anime and comics. The anime scene is going to putter out after a few years and the whole Image thing is one big flash in the pan."

"Just like the TG16/Duo, make the Neo Geo Pocket Color a priority when it arrives."

"DON'T get into the collecting race with your friends. They'll end up stopping long before you. Aside from the systems mentioned to focus on, buy what you'll play and enjoy!"

"Use ONE credit card for game purchases and keep the limit at a reasonable rate, like $500 or so. Avoid maxing the card out and only buy when the balance is nearly or completely paid off."

"Avoid buying systems at launch after the 32-bit generation."

[eskobar]

Definitely:

"eskobar, save a few hundred bucks and buy NCW ASAP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Also .....

"Don't give away your NES COLLECTION when you enter High School"

[Casati]

Don't sell your CIB collections through the local newspaper and quit video gaming in the 90s.